


loose lips sink ships

by mallory



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, TA-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mallory/pseuds/mallory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She’s my student. She’s my student.</em>
</p><p>(It freaks him out that he has to actively remind himself of the fact.)</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>
      <em>~&~</em>
    </b>
  </p>
</div><p>Reposted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	loose lips sink ships

“… Ethical and Moral Issues, we expect you to participate in discussions, but students in this subject are upperclassmen, so you know how this works…”

Felicity quietly slips through the heavy door to the lecture room, and as it closes silently behind her, the back of her neck pricks with awareness that the room has become silent too. Wincing as she turns around, she clutches her books close to her chest as her cheeks heat up.

Two hundred or so pairs of eyes are looking right at her.

She summons up the courage to turn toward the front, where a dark-skinned man with bowling balls as biceps has his eyebrows raised. _Whoa. This is Professor Diggle?_

One of his hands are suspended in the air, as if he was gesturing. The sleeves of his button down shirt are rolled up to his elbows, showing off his thick forearms. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone and the blue tie around his neck is a little crooked. His appearance looks a little too dishevelled for 10:24AM on the first week of the semester.

Felicity would have thought he spent a long and restless night in those clothes if it isn’t for his gaze, warm and steady.

“Um, h-hi,” she stutters, lifting a hand to push her glasses up her nose. “Sorry I’m late.”

He nods in acknowledgement. “No problem, Miss…?”

“Smoak. Felicity.”

He flashes her a smile, the whites of his teeth blinding—or maybe that’s just the influence of the projector light. “Nice of you to join us, Miss Smoak. Please take a seat.”

She nods profusely and nervously casts her eyes around the room.

Iris waves at her from the front row opposite the door. There’s a seat with her bag on it. (Thank god. It would've been even more humiliating climbing those stairs as everyone watched her. She would have missed a step and tripped under their scrutiny.)

The seating arrangement is slightly curved at each end of the room, like a horseshoe design, creating a more cozy feel to combat the expansiveness of the theatre room.

That’s why, after Felicity quickly takes her seat, opens her book and pulls out her pen, she catches sight of the man on the opposite end of the row sitting beside the door through which she just slipped.

She tears her eyes away from his intense stare and bites her lip, pretending to pay attention to the lecture.

In the professor’s pause to change the slide, she chances a glance toward him. He smiles. It zaps the butterflies in her stomach awake, and they flutter about listlessly.

An hour and thirty-five minutes later, above the rustling of packing that ripples throughout the theatre, Professor Diggle intones, “Before the lecture ends I want to again urge you to attend your seminar classes. Your TAs would be beneficial for your project report and exams.”

Felicity scoops her things into her arms and hitches her purse over her shoulder. She waits patiently for her friend as Iris gathers her things.

“Why were you so late?” Iris asks as she hooks an arm around Felicity’s and they insert themselves into the throng of the crowd pushing their way out. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

Felicity sighs. “Sara partied a little too hard last night and was throwing up this morning. I had to take her to the health centre on the other side of campus, and then she wouldn’t let go of me when the doctor tried to examine her.”

“Remind me again why you’re living with her again this year?”

“She’s my friend,” Felicity defends. “Plus she’s not all bad. She’s just going through a hard time with her girlfriend. If they’re still girlfriends at this point,” she amends, frowning. Sara didn’t make it clear when she stumbled into their dorm room on Saturday night with mascara streaking her face and reeking of booze and cigarettes.

“Speaking of boyfriends,” Iris not-so-stealthily pushes, “did you notice the hottie at your eleven sending you looks?”

Felicity immediately flushes as they step out of the lecture room and into the crowded hallway. She did, in fact, notice. It’s hard not to when she was sneaking glances at him throughout the lecture as well. Their eyes clashed a few times and both immediately looked away.

“Look at you! You’re blushing!”

Felicity brings a hand up to her cheek and whispers harshly, “I am not!”

“You totally are!” Iris laughs.

Felicity grumbles as Iris tugs her further into the building. “Whatever.”

“You have Queen as your TA too, right?” Before Felicity can answer in the affirmative, Iris is tugging her toward the staircase where their seminar is held a floor above.

* * *

Oliver props up the textbook on the table to use as a cover for checking Tommy’s text. It’s a habit from his high school days that he still can’t kick. It’s stupid that he’s doing it now because he’s not going to give himself detention or something—he’s the fucking teacher. Not to mention the seminar hasn’t started yet; none of his students are here.

**Visitin next week. Need me some laurel time. I’ll try to stop by after one of your classes.**

Tommy’s been running around like a headless chicken trying to get his restaurant ready for opening in a month, so Oliver hasn’t been hanging out with him as much lately, especially since the free time Tommy does have, he spends it sleeping or with his girlfriend. It’s taken him twenty-seven years, but Tommy’s finally gotten his act together and worked for everything he has right now.

Speaking of, Tommy nearly shit himself laughing when Oliver first revealed he was going to be a TA, back when they were sophomore undergrads. it was just part of a deal his professor made to Dean Waller after she threatened to kick Oliver out—at first. Professor Diggle not only taught the only class he managed not to fail in, Intro to Criminology, but he also inspired Oliver to major in Criminology and mentored him throughout his undergraduate degree.

Now, eight years later, he’s close to finishing his PhD and one of the university’s top TAs.

Life’s funny like that.

There’s a very loud, “Ow!” outside his room that pulls Oliver away from his desk to check out what it was.

… Or just plain check it out.

Her butt looks cute in those jeans. He bets it’d look cuter out of them.

It’s the blonde from this morning’s lecture. He can only see the back of her, but he’s sure. She’s rubbing her arm where he assumes the darker skinned girl—who sat next to her earlier—hit her.

The latter of the two is facing him, so she notices him first, and immediately, her gaze goes a little dreamy as a pretty smile paints across her glossy lips.

“What the heck, Iris,” the blonde mutters. “That hurt.”

“Felicity.” Iris nudges her and she finally turns around to look at what Iris is pointing at. (Him.)

_Felicity_. Oliver smiles to refrain his lips from tracing her name. “You ladies okay?”

Felicity opens and shuts her mouth twice with a little crease in her brow before it seems like she’s settled on something to say because the next time she opens her mouth, words actually come out. “We’re fine. We’re good. I mean, my arm stings a little, but overall, I’ll live. I feel like I’m about to start babbling so I’m just going to stop talking completely—I mean, not forever, because I can’t do that; I’m a talker, but I meant at this moment.” Her eyes widen as she acknowledges, “And I’m _still_ talking.” A wry chuckle punctuates the end of her, apparently, pre-babble.

He can’t help it if his smile widens, and he takes pleasure in her blue eyes flickering down to his mouth before they zoom back up to meet his. _She’s adorable_. Oliver literally has to take a moment before he can speak without flat out laughing. “Are you lost?”

“You’re Mr. Queen?” Iris asks.

“Yep. But call me Oliver,” he charms.

“Okay. Oliver,” she says giddily, drawing a light chuckle from him.

He jerks his head into the room. “Come on in, ladies.”

Iris walks past him eagerly, but Felicity’s a little slower in reacting.

As she brushes past him, her shoulder grazing his chest, she tilts her head in his direction and bites the bottom of those pink lips.

(He’s reminded of what they looked like when she was chewing on a red pen an hour earlier.)

(He tries to focus his eyes as blood rushes from his head to his… nether head.)

Sucking in a silent breath through his nose, he returns her stare until she breaks it with a heavy blink. The moment’s gone and so’s she.

Iris’ voice perks up and Felicity’s answering one fills the room.

Briefly closing his eyes, Oliver tilts his head back for a moment of respite.

The rest of his students file in in a steady stream with a few stray laggers. He’s pleased that all ten have shown up (though no doubt, throughout the semester, the head count will decrease).

He introduces himself quickly, then informs them, “I’d tell you things about myself, but then you would have to as well, and we all know how shitty those ice breaking activities are, so we’re just gonna skip through that.

“Feel free to look me up online, but if you do, I promise you, only half of those things are true.” He garners a smatter of chuckles, and he’s delighted that Felicity’s smiling and laughing too.

He goes through the motions; repeating to them what Diggle said at the beginning of the lecture and other important housekeeping information, such as his contact details and the offices hours he keeps. Then he gets down to the nitty-gritty, asking questions and opening the stage to hold a discussion about the lecture.

Most of them contribute, but it’s Felicity who catches his eye throughout the hour. Not because she’s dominating the discussion, but because of the fiery passion that unravels across her face when she speaks and the confidence with which she’s saying it. He’s impressed that she’s able to go head-to-head with the know-it-all of the group Carter Bowen (every class has one), particularly because she wasn’t even there for the whole lecture.

An hour goes by too quickly for Oliver’s liking and he finishes off the seminar with a bang, making a clever joke about ethics and morals—if he does say so himself.

(Okay, so he’s showing off to Felicity, but only just a little.)

The students are out quicker than they did coming in, eager to get to wherever they need to next.

At the door, Iris waves, “Bye, Oliver!”

Oliver grins and waves back. She’s cute, but he would never do anything about it. She’s his student, for fuck’s sake.

His eyes slide to Felicity beside her, and she smiles at him.

_So’s Felicity, dumbass._

Shit.

* * *

Felicity’s sitting in her Ethical and Moral Issues class, trying to ignore Oliver and his stupidly distracting eyes and focus on the lecture. Feeling them on her for the third time, she shoots him her best _stop-staring-you’re-distracting-me_ look and he quickly averts his attention. Huffing quietly, she settles further into her seat and frowns at the lecture slide.

She’s spent the past two weeks thinking about Oliver and berating herself for thinking about her teacher that way. And sure, it’s normal to fantasise about your teacher—everyone’s done it at least once—but at the rate she’s been going, it’s borderline inappropriate.

So yes, she’s choosing to ignore the little thrill that runs down the length of her spine every time she sees Oliver. She has more important things to worry about—like passing this class so she never has to take it again and suffer through another whole semester of sexual tension between her and Oliver, one-sided or not.

It’s not until after the seminar class (through which he kept flicking glances at her while Carter was arguing why _his_ views were correct) that she gets a chance to speak with Oliver. She fully intends on confronting him about his staring.

“Hey, so Barry wants us to meet him at his dorm later on,” Iris begins, still clicking at her laptop, chair top casually swivelling from left to right.

“Are you sure he meant the both of us or just you?” Felicity teases, taking a seat on the edge of the table.

Iris lifts her eyes long enough to roll them. “Ha-ha,” she drolls, tapping a few more times before closing her laptop.

Felicity glances toward Oliver at the head of the table where he’s laughing with a man who wasn’t in their class. He’s shorter than Oliver and has darker hair. The tan leather jacket he’s wearing and the way he’s playfully slapping at Oliver leaves Felicity assuming that he’s non-academic and that they’re friends.

“I’ll catch up with you later, Iris.”

Iris nudges her, and Felicity looks back at her friend, who’s wiggling her eyebrows suggestively with a cat-that-ate-the-cream grin. “Go get ‘im.”

“Shut up,” Felicity laughs.

As soon as Iris leaves with a teasing wink, Felicity marches up to them and puts on her best angry face. “ _Hey_.”

Oliver looks startled, his head jerking back slightly, and whatever he was saying dies on his lips. “… Hi,” he husks.

“Why were you staring at me all morning?” She pushes her right hand onto her hip and squints up at Oliver. “It’s creepy and rude and not cool.”

The other guy snorts, drawing her attention, and holds out his hand. “Hi. Tommy, best friend of Creepy and Not Cool.”

She finds she likes this Tommy person and allows a smile to spread across her face as she takes his hand for a firm shake. “Hi, Felicity - victim of Creepy and Not Cool.”

“I like her,” Tommy says and nudges Oliver, who coughs.

“Get outta here,” Oliver mutters, pushing Tommy away by his face.

Tommy whips his head back around with a laugh and salutes them. He’s in the doorway when he adds from over his shoulder, “You should be flattered. He’s only this dumb if he really likes you!”

When Felicity turns back to Oliver with an unexpected fluttery sensation in her chest, he has his eyes shut tight and kind of looks constipated. “You like me?” Internally, she cringes. _How seventh grade of me._

Oliver clears his throat then opens his eyes, but they avoid her own and he grimaces, “I’m sorry about him. He fell on his head a lot as a kid.”

Students from the next class start to pile in then, preventing anything more from being said.

Felicity escapes with one thing hanging over her head: he avoided her question.

* * *

Oliver scrolls through his Facebook Newsfeed between bites of his lunch.

He’s required to hold a minimum amount of office hours a week, which sucks because he has to be cooped up in the small room when he could be outside under the huge oak tree. (At least there’s a couch under the window on the other side of the room. Whenever he takes naps there, the wind blows through and he pretends he’s under that oak.)

There’s a knock on his door just as he clicks ‘like’ on the picture of Thea’s exaggerated weeping face alongside her AP French textbook. (As much as she complains about the work, she loves the class, if only so she can insult him in two languages.)

“Come in,” he mumbles loudly, almost spitting out chunks of his BLT sandwich. Someone pokes their head through the door and Oliver sits up straighter, dropping his sandwich in surprise. “Felicity, hi.”

He’s had a lot of time to think, watching her during the days (at least, before she’d confronted him about it and he became aware of how creepy it was) and tossing and turning alone in bed most nights. He’s concluded that this little crush on Felicity is harmless and simply academic. Objectively speaking, she’s physically attractive—yes, and she’s intelligent, which appeals to his scholar side. It’s a dangerous combination, but Oliver can control himself. It’s just a crush.

Besides, it’s not like he can do anything about it. She’s his student. He’s her teacher. Oliver’s sure there are rules against these kind of things.

“Oh, this a good time?”

Oliver nods. “Of course! Take a seat.” _Did that sound too eager?_

Felicity smiles a little teasingly as she steps into the room. She’s dressed college casual with a red SCU sweatshirt that's a size too big over a pair of dark skinny jeans. Her hair’s tied up in a messy bun with loose curls framing her face and librarian glasses perched on her nose.

As she closes the door behind her and takes the seat not obscured by his computer monitor, he messily re-wraps his half-eaten sandwich and pushes it aside. He smiles at her. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve started the assignment and I’d like to get feedback on whether or not I’m on the right track.”

“You’ve started already? Wow, that doesn’t happen often.”

She fidgets with the sleeves of her sweatshirt and drops her gaze to his chin (which he surreptitiously wipes at with the back of his fingers— _are there crumbs or smudges of sauce?_ ). “I suppose I’m one of those goody-two-shoes students who like to get a head start on things.”

Oliver smiles kindly at her. “No, no. It’s good that you did; it’s a heavy project and counts for almost half your grade.”

She bends to grab her bag from the floor where she dropped it and rummages through it. Oliver averts his eyes to keep from roaming them along the tantalising view of her back and down to the curve of her—“I’ve written a draft for the first two sections,” she informs him as her upper body pops back up.

_She’s my student._

He drops his gaze onto his desk, blindly reaching out for her paper and quickly scans the first page. “I’ll look it over and hand it back to you in class.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh hey,” he adds quickly as from the corner of his eye, he catches her begin to rise. “Since I have you here, we should make an appointment.”

Casting the paper to the side, Oliver finally looks to her, taking care to keep his eyes above her chin when the collar of her sweatshirt drops open teasingly as she leans forward in interest. Her head tilts to the side and the loose curls glide along the side of her face.

He bets they’re soft, both hair and skin. _Stop_.

“Appointment?” she questions.

He clears his throat. “It's not mandatory but each of my students can meet with me for five minutes or so every fortnight during my office hours to check on your progress. I'm here Wednesdays 4:30-5:30 and Fridays noon to one.”

She nods. “I can do five on Wednesday.”

“Perfect.” He shakes his mouse and clicks onto the calendar app.

“I’m sorry about the other day.”

His eyes float back to her questioningly. She’s caught her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyes look earnest as they stare back at him.

He only lifts the left corner of his mouth, and she elaborates, “When I yelled at you. In front of your friend.”

He smiles good-naturedly. “It’s fine. He got a kick out of it.” Oliver himself found her spunk alluring.

_She’s my student. She’s my student._

(It freaks him out that he has to actively remind himself of the fact.)

* * *

Felicity almost skips down the boy’s dormitory hall toward Barry and Roy’s room. It’s Wednesday, which means her meeting with Oliver at 5PM. The excitement is purely to get feedback on the next section of her project, of course. She’s benefited significantly over the last three weeks of one-on-one meetings, and she’s learned a great deal about him as a person.

He can be a little flirtatious, but she thinks it’s a defence mechanism from when his parents didn’t pay him as much attention as he would have liked while he and his sister was growing up. He didn’t like that she pointed that out to him fifteen minutes into their first meeting, but she has noticed that his flirting has almost completely stopped.

She’s also noticed that he cares deeply about his students. He mentioned once that a student from a previous semester had had a terrible time two weeks before an assignment was due and Oliver personally sought out the subject coordinator and vouched for him to allow him more time to finish it.

(It doesn’t help with her crush, but she’s holding on.)

“Hey Felicity!”

Felicity turns her head in search for the voice who greeted her. Contempt squeezes her gut when she matches the voice to the face.

Ray Palmer.

The guy’s in most of her classes, having chosen the same IT major and criminology minor as she did. She thought he was cute, like an overeager Great Dane. They even started dating last semester and things were going really well. Until she found out he only asked her out to get ahead in their classes. It’s safe to assume she dumped his ass.

Rolling her eyes, Felicity ignores him and continues on her way.

“Felicity—wait up!”

“Take the hint, Palmer,” she growls, never once slowing her stride.

Too bad his legs aren’t as short as his common sense is small. He catches up to her easily and hurries a little ahead of her so he’s walking backwards and facing her. “C’mon, you’re not still mad at me, are you?” He smiles charmingly.

It used to make her swoon, but now it just encourages an urge to punch him in the face. Add to that the fact that he doesn’t see anything wrong with what he did and Felicity can barely contain her anger.

“I’ve apologised again and again.” He makes a face that doesn’t look half as cute as he thinks it does. “When are you going to forgive me?”

Her legs stop her dead in their tracks and she waits for Ray to shuffle back to her, allowing the victorious smile curling onto his lips to feed into her annoyance and anger. “Ray?” she asks sweetly, pulling up the left sleeve of her blue sweater.

“Felicity,” he returns, just as sugary.

Dropping all pretences, she glowers and advances on him slowly, her voice getting louder with every word, every step she takes as she tells him firmly, “Why don’t you take your fake apologies and what little common sense you have and shove it up the slit of your equally tiny pe—”

“Everything okay here?”

Felicity sighs with annoyance and turns to Roy as he approaches from behind her, the strap of his backpack precariously hanging onto his shoulder as usual. “Just fine.”

“Beat it, Palmer.”

Ray’s affronted expression is the last thing Felicity sees before Roy’s dragging her down the hall.

“I can take care of myself, Roy,” she sniffs, yanking her arm from his firm grip. “I don’t need you sticking up for me.”

“I know.” He throws her an amused glance. “Much as I hate the guy for what he did to you, I was protecting _him_ from you. You can get vicious with your words, ‘specially when you’re using your Loud Voice. He looked like he was about to cry.”

“He did not.” She can’t remember whether or not he did; she was so caught up in telling him exactly what she’s wanted to say since they broke up.

They reach his room, but instead of opening the door, Roy turns to her and adopts the ‘Palmer smoulder’, pairing it with a trembling bottom lip. He looks so ridiculous Felicity can’t help the laughter that bubbles up her throat.

The door opens to a smiling Barry. “Thought I heard your laugh. What’s so funny?”

“Felicity ripping Palmer a new one,” Roy answers as he shoulders past his roommate.

Barry’s face lights up and he throws an arm around Felicity, guiding her into the room where Iris is already settled with her books scattered on Barry’s bed for their weekly study session. “Do tell.”

* * *

Oliver pulls away from Felicity, suddenly finding that he’s unconsciously moved closer to her.

They’re sitting on his couch in his office, working over the few mistakes in her draft. Originally, they were seated across from each other with his desk a safe barrier between them, but it was difficult for them both to read her paper. So he suggested they move to the couch. If it sounded anything more than for practicality’s sake, it wasn’t intentional and Oliver blames it on the long day he’s had.

“What did you mean by this, here?” Felicity asks, her red pen pointing to something on the paper.

He heaves in a breath and leans forward again to look over her shoulder. She’s let her hair down today and the curls look like they have been wind- and finger-tossed all day. He refuses to let himself sniff it. He’s afraid he won’t be able to resist smashing his face into the appealing nest of hair over her shoulder and risk a whole lot of things he’s not interested in listing.

“Oliver?” Her whole body turns into him, and holy fuck, her knee just brushed his. She tilts her head and smiles at him curiously. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yes, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? We’ve been at it for…” She twists her upper body around for her laptop behind her, her hair flaring out around her like some kind of sinful angel under his ugly fluorescent lights. “Gosh, an hour. We could take a break. I’m getting a bit peckish.”

Clearing his throat, he smiles at her when she regards him over her shoulder. “Food sounds great.”

“I passed by a vending machine on the way here. The giant chocolate chip cookie I spied earlier is calling my name.”

A few feet from his office, Oliver’s leaning against the edge of the machine and watching with amusement as Felicity’s eyes roam the contents, indecision on her face. The cookie is tucked under her arm, but now she’s trying to decide between Fritos and Doritos.

Deciding to put her out of her misery (and prevent the next round of inappropriate thoughts about how the light inside the machine reflects off her smooth skin), Oliver pipes up, “Get both.”

“I don’t know about you, but it takes work to keep this figure in shape.”

Oliver has to bite his tongue to prevent the comment about what _they_ could do to keep her figure in shape. Luckily, he catches someone coming down the hall.

He’s taller than Oliver, and when he draws closer, there’s a beginnings of a polite smile. Until his dark eyes shift over to Felicity and it gets caught. He picks up his pace.

Oliver glances over at Felicity to see that she’s staring at Tall Dark and More Age Appropriate, a mask of neutrality on her usually expressive face.

The man scurries down the hall. The machine buzzes.

“Both Fritos and Doritos it is, then,” Felicity exclaims a little too brightly.

It itches him for ten minutes after they get back to his office and dig into their food. It’s not until Felicity sighs for the sixth time does he bring it up.

“Do you know the guy from the hall earlier?”

Her mouth twists to the side. “He's an ex-boyfriend.”

Something akin to irritation at the guy grips his gut, and he bites the inside of his bottom lip. “I take it it didn’t end well.”

“No, and he keeps trying to talk to me after I’ve told him to leave me alone.”

A fierce rush of worry zaps through him and he leans forward to catch her wandering gaze. “Felicity, is he making you uncomfortable in any way?”

“It’s not like that. He’s harmless; I can handle him. He just… He bugs me. He’s like this annoying big… yappy thing.” Felicity blows out a harsh breath, shaking her head as her hand comes up to remove her glasses and the other covers her eyes.

“Hey,” Oliver murmurs, offering a comforting hand to her shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m upset about this. I’m glad to have found out what he did.”

He’s curious about what it was he did, but doesn’t ask partly because he knows that whatever it was, it hurt enough to end it with him, and Oliver won’t be responsible for what he may do. “The end of a relationship is always sad, no matter if it was a good or bad thing.”

She drops her hand and lifts her head, glassy blues looking up at him with a Bambi expression that punches him right in the chest. “Why?” she asks quietly, her voice so small he wouldn’t have heard her if he isn’t sitting right next to her.

“Because it means that someone who was supposed to make you happy didn’t.” Oliver glances down at the hand that’s still resting on her shoulder, his thumb unconsciously stroking back and forth. “That something you believed or hoped would be wonderful turned out awful or just wasn’t… enough.”

Her tongue catches his eye, pink and wet as it glides along the bottom of her lip. He can feel the shaky release of a breath, her shoulders quivering with the action.

The air around him grows thick as a need clouds his head, a need to touch her, kiss her.

“You have cheese powder here,” he murmurs, moving his hand to the corner of her mouth to wipe away crumbs that aren’t there, which, coincidentally, brings him closer to her.

Her mouth parts, revealing the bottom of her two front teeth.

(He wonders what it’d feel like to run his tongue along them.)

“Are you hitting on me?”

He watches her carefully, feeling her warm breath brush his chin. “Would that be okay?”

“It depends…” she trails off coyly.

“On?”

“Whether or not you’re going to do anything about it.” Her eyes flicker down to his mouth, and she swallows.

His breathing picks up under her heated gaze. He’s still watching her for any hint of discomfort as he leans further toward her, taking his time and giving her a chance to pull away if she so pleases. Her expression clearly leads him to believe she wants this, but her words are ambiguous and he could be easily misinterpreting this.

Her eyes flutter closed.

“I am,” he whispers, just before latching his lips onto hers, and his eyes shut in response to the small, pleasured noise from the back of her throat.

His hands reach for her hips, and she deepens the kiss as she leans into him. The kiss grows—thicker, wetter, _more_ —as they bring their tongues and teeth into it.

(The bottom front teeth are bumpy, and the moan he draws from her at that is pure lust.)

He gently rakes his fingers through her hair to hold the back of her head, fusing their mouths together; slipping against each other from saliva and noises, but Oliver needs to get closer. He needs to feel her entire body pressed against him; feel her warmth seeping into him, feel her hips seeking his—just _feel her_.

He pulls away with a burning gasp, but immediately skims his mouth to her jaw as he mumbles against smooth skin, “Lie back,” and slides his hands up her back to help her.

“Oliver,” she breathes, and fuck if it’s not the sexiest exhalation he’s ever heard. Her arms wrap around his neck and she clings to him as he lowers her down and manoeuvres himself to fit between her legs.

Something crinkles under them, but Oliver’s too busy nipping behind her ear and revelling in the stuttering symphony of her pleasure to care about anything else.

She mumbles his name, her hold tightening around him as she shifts from under him, then a loud bang sounds from under them both, and they pull apart in surprise.

He pulls her back into a sitting position and finds the source of the noise. The bag of Fritos exploded under their weight and there’s a mess of corn chips on his couch and the carpet.

Felicity’s kiss-swollen lips are parted, and he’s still close enough to feel the puffs of air against the collar of his neck. He's reluctant to pull back because he knows where it’s going to go from here. After a month of attraction (at least from his side), Oliver just wants to stay in this moment just a little longer because his rational side is telling him that reality’s hit Felicity and she’s going to pull away.

This—what they’ve done, it’s wrong. Not only because of the age difference, but also because he’s her teacher. There’s an imbalance of power and he’s a disgusting man for taking advantage of his position of authority over a young woman, no matter that she was willing.

To make matters worse, he took advantage when she's emotionally vulnerable after seeing her ex.

(Shit, he should have thought of that _before_ he learned what her lips taste like and how her skin feels under his fingers and what she sounds like when he’s sucking on _that_ spot.)

He falls back onto the other side of the couch and adjusts his clothes. He watches her cautiously, taking in her dishevelled hair and the small slip of skin where her blue sweater rode up during their make-out session.

She doesn’t blink for a while and he becomes concerned enough to make a noise from the back of his throat. Then she closes her eyes and scratches her head, gliding her fingers down her hair to work out the little knots he made when he tangled his own fingers in her soft curls. “We shouldn’t have…”

_Fuck me._

(He wishes.)

Oliver nods. “It’s okay.”

“Sorry.”

“Hey, stop.” He’s about to clasp a hand on her knee, but thinks better of touching her. “You don’t need to apologise. In fact, I should be the one apologising. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken advantage.”

“So much for an _Ethical and Moral_ tutor.” Felicity smiles wryly.

Sighing, he drives a hand over his head. He really fucked up.

He needs a drink. There’s a bottle of Scotch at the back of his bottom desk drawer, and he makes his way over there. As he pulls it out, along with two glasses, he chances a glance to Felicity.

She has her hands clasped tightly in her lap and she’s purposefully staring at the mess of paper scattered on the ground in front of the couch. She seems a little on edge. Maybe she needs a drink too.

“Do you want?” he offers as he pours himself two fingers.

When she looks up at him, he holds up the bottle for her to see. “Oh,” she shakes her head. “I can’t.”

“Ah, that’s right.” He brings his tumbler up to his lips. “You’re twenty.”

“Nineteen, actually,” she corrects, and he almost chokes on his drink. “I skipped third grade.”

He heaves a breath before gulping down the rest and refilling. Four fingers.


End file.
